Gail Alexan­der

Gen­er­al elec­tions aren’t far off and the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment has to start prepa­ra­tions from now, says En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who's seek­ing the chair­man­ship.

And Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has en­cour­aged youths to come for­ward and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the PNM and T&T.

Both spoke at the launch of the Lead­ers in Ser­vice can­di­dates for up­com­ing in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion at Bel­mont Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. The LIS can­di­dates are Row­ley (Po­lit­i­cal leader), Young (chair­man), Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly (Vice chair­man), Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (La­dy vice chair­man un­op­posed), Fos­ter Cum­mings (Gen­er­al sec­re­tary un­op­posed), Pa­tri­cia Alex­is (As­sis­tant gen­er­al sec­re­tary), Kaz­im Ho­sein (Trea­sur­er), Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing (Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer), Faris Al-Rawi (PRO un­op­posed), Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus (Labour re­la­tions), In­dar Paras­ram (Elec­tions of­fi­cer), Ter­rence Beepath (Elec­tions of­fi­cer), Max­ine Richards (Wel­fare of­fi­cer), Je­niece Scott (Youth of­fi­cer), Kwasi Robin­son (So­cial me­dia of­fi­cer) and Irene Hinds (Op­er­a­tions of­fi­cer).

Row­ley is be­ing chal­lenged for lead­er­ship by for­mer PNM min­is­ter Karen Nunez-Tesheira, Ronald Boynes and Ju­nior Bar­rack. There are 23 oth­ers con­test­ing against the LIS team, in­clud­ing the Peo­ple's Cham­pi­ons team.

Young said the launch was the start of “a move­ment in our (Peo­ple's Na­tion­al) Move­ment. He said the LIS can­di­dates coined “our­selves un­der an ap­pro­pri­ate name - Lead­ers in Ser­vice.”

Young slammed those who were putting them­selves up for lead­er­ship whom he said spent time do­ing noth­ing but “... Crit­i­cis­ing and like lit­tle pot hounds, bark­ing at our an­kles as if they were Op­po­si­tion and now they want to put them­selves for­ward..."

Young said he'll en­gage the youths and bring them on board and the new ex­ec­u­tive will en­ter the 41 con­stituen­cies as it need­ed to get to the "ground" and un­der­stand from youths in com­mu­ni­ties what will make the dif­fer­ence.

Row­ley, who cheered loud­ly, said it was a good thing so many peo­ple of­fered them­selves to serve and it showed the PNM is a healthy de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion. He said he was hap­py the par­ty un­der his stew­ard­ship is as vig­or­ous as it is to­day.

He said he of­fered him­self to serve for an­oth­er term in the ex­ec­u­tive and he'd like to be­lieve what he heard from mem­bers dur­ing the meet­ing in recog­ni­tion of his name was en­dorse­ment of the work he's do­ing and his lead­er­ship. He said he was sat­is­fied, when the PNM is ex­am­ined be­tween 2010 and now, that it would be con­clud­ed it had made progress.

Row­ley said he stayed to con­test in 2020 elec­tions as he'd en­cour­aged a num­ber of youths to en­ter the po­lit­i­cal are­na and of­fer them­selves for pub­lic ser­vice. He said many did and he want­ed to en­sure they got the ben­e­fit of ex­po­sure and ex­pe­ri­ence for the pub­lic's ben­e­fit.

He said as he looked at the large gath­er­ing, it re­mind­ed him of a call he made in To­ba­go in an ear­li­er elec­tion, "When I said to young peo­ple, come for­ward and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your coun­try."

"Tonight, I make that call to the PNM, those of you who of­fered your­self along­side a good com­ple­ment of olde r... ok, along­side a com­po­nent of ex­pe­ri­enced peo­ple: young peo­ple, come for­ward and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for this par­ty and this coun­try."

He thanked those who of­fered them­selves to do the work ahead in 2022 and be­yond, not­ing in a par­ty, it's hard work.

Row­ley not­ed de­trac­tors' com­plaints about "rig­ging" con­cern­ing the ear­ly vot­ing, which PNM is hav­ing for the first time. He said he was con­fi­dent that in the same way the par­ty in­sti­tut­ed the one man-one vote and oth­er changes, that it would "dis­tin­guish it­self" on De­cem­ber 4 when bal­lots are count­ed.

Row­ley thanked his Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy.

"When my ca­reer would have end­ed, I'd be able to say there's no con­stituen­cy - maybe one or two - that sup­port­ed its MP through thick and thin like Diego Mar­tin West."

Fos­ter to Row­ley's ri­vals: Rock so

Un­op­posed PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, who praised par­ty leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, ad­vised Row­ley's com­peti­tors to "rock so - we not vot­ing for you."

Cum­mings said some de­trac­tors who'd sat on the "shoul­der" for the last 10 years now want to en­ter the fast lane.

"Ab­solute­ly not - we re­ject you ... as the youths say 'Vote Noth­ing'."

Cum­mings said he was vot­ing for Stu­art Young for chair­man and would ad­vise con­stituen­cies to sup­port him. He said PoS North had “pro­duced a good son (Young), “and we ac­cept him and will use him" for the par­ty.

Cum­mings, who said the elec­tion was a se­ri­ous mat­ter, ad­vised mem­bers to treat it as a gen­er­al elec­tion. He said teams would be mo­bilised on vot­ing days to bring out peo­ple, aim­ing for the largest num­ber ever.

“Your vote is what we re­quire,” he said.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who is vy­ing for vice chair­man, said T&T is in a time of tran­si­tion and COVID-19 had made things very dif­fer­ent. She added that peo­ple are in tran­si­tion and so was the pol­i­tics. She said the PNM can­not be­come ir­rel­e­vant, so the elec­tion is very im­por­tant, as it showed the PNM tran­si­tion­ing and grow­ing. She said the par­ty will have to adapt to a “new T&T.”

The meet­ing al­so ob­served a minute’s si­lence over the pass­ing of late PNM sen­a­tor Dr Lester Hen­ry, whose fu­ner­al was ear­li­er in the day.

The LIS will present their can­di­dates on Sun­day in Diego Mar­tin.